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A dumb postseason fatigue question Topic

I know that this has been covered over and over again on these forums, but my teams make it to the postseason so rarely that when they do I need to remind myself of how fatigue works in post season.

So, with my apologies, two questions:

First, I have a team in the World Series in a prog league and one of my pitchers is Grover Cleveland "Pete" Alexander.

Ordinarily he would be automatic as the opening game starter but he had, in 1926, 211 IP and with the 10% bump that comes to 232. But we had an especially tough race to the playoffs, a tie-breaker (he was the starter of course), and two playoff rounds that went to 5 and then 7 games respectively.

Alexander was down to 90% by the middle of the NLCS and I put him in the bullpen at that point. He now has 245 IP - in theory has none left for the season. But I recall that there is some allowance of IP for the postseason, but do not remember how it works. With this relative rest of staying in a relief roll he is back up to 97%, so I am tempted to start him (my three starters right now in the two-season prog league are Doyle Alexander, Jerry Reuss and John Denny, all from 1976, with Pete Alexander currently set at closer with a fairly generous pitch count).

So, is he basically out of IP and running on fumes, in which case it is a bad idea to use him for more than an inning here or there late in the games, or is his suddenly returning to 97% a reflection of him still having some IP because of some post-season allowance ?

Second question involves the TOC - everyone is back to 100% on the TOC version of this team. Does that mean that the PA and IP expended during the season and post-season in the actual league are of no import and instead there is a completely separate way of calculating fatigue in TOCs with everyone's team starting at the same 100% point and expending IP/PA only in the TOC?

Here is most of the answer to my questions from contrarian23's magnificent, classic forum post "Understanding Fatigue". Any further explanation of this or discussion of postseason fatigue issues and advice is welcome all the same. Thanks.

I agree...start your best player since there is no tomorrow come the WS. If you start him early in the series and you need a must win come game 5 or 6 then he may be able to contribute again and bring you the title.

But just to be clear - Pete Alexander is way out of IP even with the plus 10%. So will he heal ? Is he already burnt and so using him can be counter-productive ? Or do even those players out of IP recharge ?

Because if he doesn't recharge, but is still over 90% isn't the bullpen a better bet, as you use the few quality innings (over 85% or so with the stamina level continually going down with each use) a little at a time as say a closer ?

You both know how much I respect your views on this sort of thing. But both of you mentioned a possible second use, implying that even a player with no IP left will regain some percentage of stamina even with the ultra-overuse. Is your advice based on this, or independent of it, in other words even if Alexander won't recharge his battery as it were, it is better to use him and to use him as a starter ?

He will still heal slowly, because he'll have used 5,555 pitches in 181 games, then 5,555 pitches in 182 games, etc.

At some point he gets so far over his total pitches that he basically stops healing. If you use him once there is still a chance you won't get to use him again. If you really have no other closer you trust, then keep him in the bullpen, but I'd rather burn him out and hope for a comeback, at least enough to be effective as a closer.

My experience with overused pitchers is this: if you pitch him at 97% and use him as a RP (say 20-25 pitches) he will drop into the blue (probably into the 60s) and slowly come back to usefulness (maybe 92-95%) and may be able to pitch 3 times in a series (in games 4 and 7). But, if you use him as a starter and pitch him deep into a game (85-100 pitches) he will probably drop into the red (probably 30s) and slowly come back to usefullness (maybe low 90s) by game 5 or so of the series...when you can use him as a SP again and he'll be done for the series.

It just depends if you want to get 3 (maybe 4 if you pitch him in the blue) games as a RP or 2 starts out of him.

My thoughts has always been get the most IP you can from him. 3/4 RP @ 2 IP = 6-8 IP...versus 2 starts at 5-6 IP = 10-12 IP. The second start may be in the 86-92% range though.